United Prosperous and Peaceful Zambia(UPPZ) president Charles Chanda has strongly urged Government to stop using the Food Reserve Agency(FRA) to indirectly tax farmers who work hard to feed the nation.
Mr Chanda says it is sad that farmers must now pay Government through FRA to feed the nation.
“I wish to take this time to appeal to the Government to stop this indirect taxing of our farmers through FRA. This thing of playing with the price of maize without considering the tireless efforts and the cost of inputs and transportation…and also the devastating effect of mother nature on our farmers is not fair,” Mr Chanda complained.
He said in the 2015/16 marketing season, Government had paid the price of maize to farmers at K85 because they understood the market forces and knew the cost of living at that time.
“… Government knew the expenditure farmers were incurring at that time, so they came up with that price,” he said.

Mr Chanda said in 2016 and 2017 Government decided to reduce the price to K60.
“There was no improvement in the economy.There was no reduction in terms of prices for inputs. There was no communication with GOD on how much rain He must give the farmers.The reduction in the price of maize from K85 to K60 was actually an indirect way of taxing the hard working farmers. That K25 that was reduced was like a holding tax that Government had demanded from our farmers and this is about 29 percent tax to the farmers. How do you tax people that are feeding your citizens. How do you reach a point where you want farmers to pay you for feeding the nation. This doesn’t make sense,” he complained.
The UPPZ leader added: “Look at this marketing season, the same Government has decided…you did not increase the price of maize, please stop playing on the minds of citizens. The price was K85, so for you to say that it was K70 you reduced by K15 and that is a tax our farmers are paying to the Government. There should have been an increase and the price of maize should have been K95 or K100 if you are going to look at the 2015/2016 price.Right now every farmer in Zambia is paying 17 percent indirect tax to the PF Government because they think that by playing on the intelligence of the citizens, we will think that there has been an increase there has been no increase. Government must stop taxing poor farmers because they are feeding the nation.”